Bill Lueders column: State health sector gets drug dollars

9:37 PM,
Apr. 7, 2013

Written by

Bill Lueders

Journalist Steven Brill, in his recent 24,000-word Time magazine article on how the U.S. medical establishment is fleecing consumers, touted a database run by ProPublica, the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom.

This database, Dollars for Docs, logs payments from pharmaceutical companies to health professionals. Critics say this encourages recipients to use and recommend the products of these companies, with health insurers and consumers picking up the tab.

Updated in March, the database now itemizes $2 billion in payments from 2009 through 2012. ...